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Students’ lawsuit against Shenandoah County School Board proceeds

Rebecca Barnabi
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A federal judge denied efforts by Shenandoah County School Board to dismiss a complaint by students and the Virginia NAACP of civil rights violations.

In May 2024, the school board voted to reinstate the names of Confederate generals on two public schools.

The Washington Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs and Covington & Burling LLP filed a complaint on June 11, 2024 in United States Western District of Virginia Court to challenge the decision. The committee represents five public school students and the Virginia State Conference NAACP.

The Committee seeks to challenge the decision based on two constitutional claims: the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The lawsuit also challenges the decision based on two federal laws: Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the Equal Educational Opportunities Act.

After the school board filed a motion to dismiss the four claims, the committee opposed the motion to dismiss.

Both sides presented oral arguments in September 2024 and on January 22, 2025, Judge Michael F. Urbanski issued an order to deny the motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

“This is a huge win for us. All four of our claims are still in play,” said Marja Plater, one of three lawyers with the committee representing the students and the Virginia NAACP.

Plater, who attended undergraduate school at Hampton University, said the judge’s decision Tuesday acknowledges that enough facts exist to prove that the claims have merit and can proceed.

In July 2020, then-Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam wrote letters to all Virginia school boards asking that the names of any schools named after Confederate generals be changed.

The Shenandoah County School Board previously retired the names of the Confederate generals on January 14, 2021 and named the schools Mountain View High School and Honey Run Elementary School.

The school board’s vote in May 2024 intended to reinstate the names of General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson to Stonewall Jackson High School and Ashby Lee, after Generals Robert E. Lee and Turner Ashby to Ashby Lee Elementary School.

Plater, who has been an attorney on the case from day one, specializes in civil rights.

“When the case first came to us, it became clear that the school board’s actions had a negative impact on Black students and other students [who did not want a connection to Confederate generals’ names and imagery],” Plater said. She added that “it was clear that action needed to be taken” and that the names of the generals on the schools were a “negative racial connotation” that impacted students.

Plater and her colleagues will continue litigating this case with a current trial date for the week of June 30, 2025.

“The ultimate goal is to remove the Confederate general names and imagery because they are harmful to Black students,” Plater said.

Urbanski’s response to the case so far is that the school board’s intentions were linked to their predecessors who named the schools after Confederate generals in 1959 as “Whites only” schools. Historical evidence shows that the naming of the schools as such “often have been used as symbols in promoting segregation.”

“These historical allegations plausibly indicate that the school board has previously acted with discriminatory intent and that Confederate school names are known tools for intentionally conveying a school’s aim to exclude Black students,” Urbanski said.

The judge agrees, according to Plater, that what she and her colleagues have alleged in the complaint is enough to proceed with the litigation.

“Which is a tremendous win and signals there is a need to continue to fight for these young people,” she said.

Plater and her colleagues will now prepare for litigation “and ensure the rights of these students can be vindicated and protected.”

“We’re prepared to litigate this case to the fullest extent,” Plater said.

Most importantly, she and her colleagues want to make sure that the situation and the case do not cause lasting psychological harm to the students, who do not deserve what is going on. The committee will ensure their rights are not violated.

“Hopefully, this is a bright light in a moment when rights are under attack,” Plater said.

According to the Rev. Cozy Bailey, president of the Virginia State Conference NAACP, a Shenandoah County parent reached out to the NAACP and connected the organization with the students. He said he was unsure he could put into words his initial reaction to the situation but words like incredulous, frustrated, disgusted and amazed are close.

“It felt like we were living in an era that I studied in Virginia history,” Bailey said. Particularly, the Jim Crow era when Virginia not only built institutions for segregation but named them after Confederate generals. “It was something we hadn’t seen before.”

Bailey said that he later discovered that some members of the school board had campaigned for election to the school board with the promise of returning the Confederate names to the schools.

“It was just unbelievable,” he said. However, the situation was right for the NAACP’s involvement. Bailey also heard that the school system had kept in storage the original signage with the Confederate names in hopes of returning the names.

In recent years, Virginians have been working to modify a state constitution that was created during Jim Crow.

Bailey said that large pockets of sentiment have remained in the Commonwealth with the idea that Blacks should “get over” what happened in the past.

“They were bound and determined to overturn the decision of the previous school board,” Bailey said of Shenandoah County.

Urbanski’s decision this week is “a small but important step.”

“Many people say as goes Virginia, so goes the nation,” Bailey said.

For three years, the atrocities against Blacks had been removed with the removal of Confederate names and the situation in Shenandoah County “has affected the moral of many of the students.” Bailey said members of the community have also been affected.

“The NAACP will help fight injustice there and anywhere,” he said.

Bailey said that the NAACP uses other tools besides litigation until litigation is necessary.

“We feel affirmed in what we’re doing under the law.”

The students and the NAACP are “on the right side of the law.” Bailey said the organization believes its interpretation of the law is correct and the judge seems to agree. The court process has been slow since last summer, but, Bailey said he noticed how quickly the school board acted early last year to change the names of the schools back to Confederate generals. In the end, he said the case will be in favor “of equal protection under the law.”

“We’re going to remain steadfast,” he said.

Shenandoah County returning names of Jackson, Lee, Ashby to public schools

‘Reminders of Confederate legacies’: Shenandoah County NAACP sues school board

Rebecca Barnabi

Rebecca Barnabi

Rebecca J. Barnabi is the national editor of Augusta Free Press. A graduate of the University of Mary Washington, she began her journalism career at The Fredericksburg Free-Lance Star. In 2013, she was awarded first place for feature writing in the Maryland, Delaware, District of Columbia Awards Program, and was honored by the Virginia School Boards Association’s 2019 Media Honor Roll Program for her coverage of Waynesboro Schools. Her background in newspapers includes writing about features, local government, education and the arts.